What Is AI Marketing And How To Incorporate It In Your Marketing Strategy

IN GUIDES

Time to read: 5 minutes

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) in marketing is a relatively new concept, it has already proven to be an extremely effective addition to the marketing professional’s toolkit. Let’s explore how today's marketers are leveraging the power of AI to improve the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.

What is AI marketing?

AI Marketing, also known as Artificial Intelligence Marketing, harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to automate decision-making processes in marketing. It involves utilising AI technologies to collect and analyse data, as well as observe audience behaviour and economic trends that impact marketing initiatives. Particularly in digital marketing, where speed is crucial, AI is employed to streamline efforts.

AI marketing tools leverage data and customer profiles to understand the most effective ways to engage with customers. These tools autonomously deliver customised messages to individuals at the opportune moment, without requiring intervention from marketing team members. This ensures optimal efficiency in marketing campaigns. AI is commonly employed by digital marketers to enhance their teams or handle tasks that demand less human involvement.

AI Marketing encompasses various use cases, including:

1. Data Analysis: Automating the collection and analysis of large volumes of marketing data from different campaigns and programs, eliminating the need for manual sorting.

2. Content Generation: AI generates both short and long-form content for marketing purposes, including video captions, email subject lines, web copy, blogs, and more’. 

3. Media Buying: Predicting the most effective advertisement and media placements for a business, maximising the return on investment (ROI) of marketing strategies while reaching the target audience.

4. Real-time Personalisation: Modifying a customer's experience with marketing assets, such as web pages, social media posts, or emails, to align with their past preferences and encourage specific actions, such as clicking a link, signing up, or making a purchase.

5. Natural Language Processing (NLP): Utilising AI to generate human-like language for content creation, customer service bots, personalised experiences, and more.

6. Automated Decision-Making: Assisting businesses in deciding which marketing or business growth strategies to employ based on historical data or external data inputs.

How does AI marketing work?

AI Marketing works by empowering modern marketers to gain a comprehensive and insightful understanding of their audience. With the advent of AI platforms, marketers and organisations can extract valuable customer insights from a diverse range of data sources. These insights serve to deepen customer connections, foster genuine engagement, and drive higher conversion rates.

AI plays a vital role in various aspects of marketing, including:

1. Marketing Automation: AI is utilised to automate tasks such as lead generation, lead scoring, and customer retention. By leveraging AI, marketers can identify potential customers and engage with them at the optimal time when they are most likely to respond positively to marketing messages.

2. Personalisation: AI technologies create customer profiles based on data gathered from their purchase history and interactions. Marketers can then deliver targeted advertisements, offers, and new products that align with customers' preferences. Targeted marketing, powered by customer data, enhances engagement, conversion rates, and overall marketing return on investment (ROI).

3. Forecasting: AI serves as a valuable tool for predictive analytics and forecasting. Predictive analytics utilises data from past customer interactions to anticipate their future actions. When applied to larger audience segments and scaled up, AI can also forecast business metrics such as revenue outcomes, providing valuable insights for strategic decision-making.

Types of AI marketing solutions

AI marketing solutions play a crucial role in enabling marketers to establish connections with consumers. The following components make up the leading solutions today, bridging the gap between the vast amount of customer data and actionable steps for future campaigns:

1. Machine Learning:

Machine learning, driven by AI, utilises computer algorithms to automatically analyse information and enhance digital marketing campaigns based on experience. By leveraging relevant historical data, machine learning devices can inform marketers about effective strategies and help avoid repeating past mistakes.

2. Big Data and Analytics:

The rise of digital media has generated a significant amount of "big data," presenting opportunities for marketers to gain insights and accurately assess value across different channels. However, the abundance of data can be overwhelming. AI marketing comes to the rescue by rapidly sifting through the data, filtering it down to its essentials, and providing analysis. It can also recommend the most valuable elements to incorporate into future marketing campaigns.

3. AI Marketing Platforms & Tools:

Effective AI-powered marketing solutions offer digital marketers centralised platforms for managing the vast amounts of collected data. These AI marketing platforms extract valuable marketing intelligence from the target audience, empowering marketers to make data-driven decisions about effective outreach strategies. For instance, frameworks like Bayesian Learning and Forgetting aid marketers in understanding a customer's receptiveness to specific digital marketing efforts, leading to improved campaign targeting.

In summary, AI marketing solutions encompass machine learning for campaign improvement, the use of big data and analytics for insightful analysis, and AI-powered platforms and tools for managing data and making informed marketing decisions.

How is AI changing digital marketing?

AI is changing digital marketing in several ways, bringing significant advancements to the industry. Here are some key ways in which AI is transforming digital marketing:

1. Centralised Data: AI-enhanced marketing automation can gather, organise, analyse, and segment valuable marketing data from multiple sources. This automation not only saves time, but also improves data accuracy and accessibility, providing marketers with a centralised location for data storage and utilisation in marketing campaigns.

2. Improved A/B Testing: AI algorithms enable faster and more comprehensive A/B testing. From web copy to design elements, AI can run campaigns through algorithms, learning and improving with each iteration. This enhances the efficiency of testing and provides marketers with more insightful results to optimise their marketing strategies.

3. Virtual Agents: AI-powered virtual assistants, such as chatbots, offer around-the-clock customer support. These virtual agents leverage user data to inform sales and advertising efforts, freeing up human agents for more complex tasks. They enhance the customer experience by providing self-serve ways for consumers to find information and make informed purchasing decisions.

4. Targeted Lead Generation and Client Segmentation: AI utilises big data to build robust profiles for leads, cross-referencing social media trends, web interactions, and public records. This enables targeted lead generation and personalised marketing messages, predicting conversion likelihood and executing follow-up actions, thus optimising lead qualification and nurturing.

5. Content Creation Written by AI: AI-powered natural language processing and machine learning enable the creation of marketing content and interpretation of user reactions. While AI cannot replicate the creativity of human writers, it can generate personalised content suggestions, ad copy, subject headlines, and calls to action, augmenting the content creation process.

6. Timely Messaging: AI analyses client preferences and behaviours to determine the best time to deliver marketing messages. By sending messages when clients are most receptive, AI helps optimise campaign ROI and ensures timely and relevant interactions with customers.

7. Self-Learning: AI systems are designed to continuously learn and improve over time, mimicking intelligent processes. Through self-teaching and cognitive capabilities, AI becomes more accurate and beneficial as it is utilised, allowing marketers to leverage its evolving intelligence to automate and optimise marketing operations.

In the face of demand for data-driven, personalised, and scalable customer experiences, more than half of marketers say they’ve invested in the power of artificial intelligence. Learn how a Marketing AI can benefit your business in our free State of Marketing resource.
 
 

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The benefits of using AI in marketing in your business

Utilising AI in marketing is a great way to leverage those technologies that allow us to develop deeper customer insights across a whole range of touchpoints: 

Gather data-rich insights in a fraction of the time
AI also plays a pivotal role in data analytics and performance measurement. AI enables marketers to track campaign performance from mass-market messaging right down to individual social media posts. With the power of AI, marketers can leverage thousands of data points to optimise their measurement framework according to the targets and metrics that matter to the business.

Understand your target audience better
The data collected by AI can help provide us with a better understanding of our customers by collecting and analysing their social, behavioural and sales data so you can target your message to the right audience and better anticipate their needs. 

Streamline operations
Data drives modern marketing practices and AI plays a central role in achieving better business efficiencies and delivering better outcomes across marketing operations. AI can help streamline marketing operations as it will minimise the inefficiencies in your business’ operations allowing for more time to be spent on strategic action.

The Challenges of AI Marketing

Contemporary marketing heavily depends on a thorough comprehension of customer needs and preferences, as well as the agility to act upon that knowledge swiftly and efficiently. The capacity to make data-driven decisions in real-time has propelled AI marketing solutions to the forefront of marketing strategies. Nevertheless, marketing teams must exercise discernment when determining the optimal integration of AI into their campaigns and operations. As the development and utilisation of AI marketing tools are still in their nascent stages, it is crucial to acknowledge and address several challenges when implementing AI into your digital marketing strategy.

Training employees

Incorporating AI into marketing requires training employees to effectively utilise AI marketing tools. Just like humans, AI tools need time and guidance to learn organisational goals, customer preferences, historical trends, and overall context. By investing in comprehensive training programs, marketing teams can empower their employees to leverage AI technology to its full potential.

Data quality

Ensuring high-quality data is essential for AI marketing success. AI tools rely on accurate, timely, and representative data to make informed decisions. Marketers must prioritise data quality assurance efforts to avoid inaccurate conclusions that fail to align with consumer desires. By maintaining data integrity, AI marketing tools can provide valuable insights and drive effective marketing strategies.

User data security and privacy

Maintaining user data security and privacy is critical when implementing AI marketing strategies. With increasing scrutiny and regulations like GDPR, digital marketing teams must handle consumer data ethically and in compliance with legal standards. AI marketing tools should be programmed to adhere to privacy guidelines, minimising the risk of penalties and protecting the organisation's reputation.

Employee adoption

Gaining buy-in and fostering employee adoption of AI marketing can be challenging. While quantifiable metrics like ROI and efficiency are easily measurable, demonstrating the impact of AI on customer experience and brand reputation requires the right measurement tools. Digital marketing teams should effectively communicate the value of AI marketing investments to business stakeholders and provide training and support to facilitate employee adoption.

Developing best practices

As AI marketing is a relatively new tool, definitive best practices for initial deployments are still evolving. Digital marketing teams need to consider the long-term effects of implementing AI marketing strategies, beyond short-term benefits. By actively participating in industry knowledge sharing and staying updated with advancements, marketers can contribute to the development of best practices and ensure successful AI integration.

How to use AI marketing

To effectively harness the power of AI in marketing campaigns and operations, it is crucial to begin with a well-defined plan. This ensures that marketing teams can minimise challenges and maximise the value of their AI investment in the shortest possible time. Before integrating AI marketing tools, digital marketers should consider the following key factors:

Establish Clear Goals

Just like any marketing program, it is essential to establish clear goals and define marketing analytics for your AI marketing initiative right from the start. Identify areas within your campaigns or operations that can benefit from improvement, such as segmentation. Set measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) that will gauge the success of your AI-enhanced marketing campaign, especially for qualitative objectives like enhancing customer experience.

Adhere to Data Privacy Standards

Ensure that your AI marketing platform adheres to acceptable data usage boundaries while personalising customer experiences. Establish and incorporate privacy standards into your AI marketing platforms to maintain compliance and earn consumer trust.

Consider Data Quantity and Sources

AI marketing typically requires a substantial amount of data to commence. This data will train the AI marketing tool in customer preferences, external trends, and other factors that influence the success of AI-enabled marketing campaigns. Utilise data from your organisation's CRM, previous marketing campaigns, and website analytics. Additionally, supplement this data with second and third-party data, such as location data and weather data, to incorporate external factors that influence purchase decisions.

Acquire Data Science Talent

Many marketing teams may lack the necessary data science and AI expertise, which can hinder working with large datasets and deriving valuable insights. To launch AI marketing programs successfully, organisations should consider collaborating with third-party entities that specialise in data collection, analysis, and training AI tools for optimal performance. These partnerships can also provide ongoing maintenance and support for sustained success.

Ensure Data Quality

As machine learning and AI marketing programs rely on data, it is crucial to maintain high data quality. If the data fed into your AI marketing program is not standardised and error-free, the insights derived may be unreliable and potentially lead to detrimental decisions. Before implementing AI marketing programs, marketing teams should collaborate with data management teams and other departments to establish processes for data cleansing and maintenance. Consider the following essential data dimensions:

  • Timeliness

  • Completeness

  • Consistency

  • Relevance

  • Transparency

  • Accuracy

  • Representativeness

Develop an Integrated AI Marketing Strategy

Integrating AI marketing tools with your existing marketing strategy yields better results compared to using them as standalone tactics. By incorporating AI into your marketing strategy, you can optimise labour-intensive tasks like data analysis and mitigate the risk of inaccuracies, such as attribution. AI fills in these "blind spots" and enables digital marketers to enhance their marketing efforts while building upon effective digital marketing methods used in the past. This integrated approach propels your marketing to new heights and embraces forward-thinking methodologies.

How can you best implement AI?

Utilising AI in marketing doesn’t come without challenges. Although AI technologies are becoming more common across many marketing practices, some important considerations should be accounted for.

Being mindful of these key rules to AI will help you be prepared and avoid any potential pitfalls:

Accurate data is a must
AI requires accurate, verifiable data inputs to make effective marketing initiatives. Low quality or incomplete data can cause more issues than no data so avoid inputting poor data at all costs.

Invest in quality AI technology
Successfully integrating AI into your marketing technology and services platform requires the appropriate technology resources. Investing in a quality AI system will ensure the adoption of the technology runs smoothly, where a cheaper system may break down. Organisations that struggle to fully invest in the hardware can opt to partner with a cloud provider who can help guide them with the right technology solutions.

Creating a technology adoption culture
Organisations that fully embrace the opportunities that come through building AI into their marketing operations will be in a strong position to make the most of the competitive advantage that AI can deliver. Develop this culture by providing training and support programs to help people understand how to best use the technology and understand what can be achieved with the new technology.

Use AI Marketing with Salesforce

Boost your marketing AI efforts with Salesforce Einstein and Data Cloud Genie. Salesforce Einstein, the world's first generative AI for CRM, revolutionises customer interactions by tailoring every engagement with AI-generated emails, conversations, and offers based on real-time data. This personalisation enhances customer engagement and increases conversion rates. Additionally, Einstein GPT streamlines workflows and boosts productivity by providing insights across sales, service, marketing, and commerce, empowering marketers to make data-driven decisions with ease.
 
 

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